Lauded as a “ground-breaking” concept for sustainable tissue production, Essity’s collaboration with Voith will take tissue-making to the next level. TWM Senior Editor Helen Morris interviews Elena Viviani, Technology Director at Essity, Jonas Bergström and Matthias Höhsl, both Senior Managers Disruptive Innovation at Voith Paper.
Aiming to drive a completely new, scalable decarbonisation process across the global paper industry, in 2023 Essity and Voith announced an exclusive partnership working together on a pilot plant at Voith Paper in Heidenheim, Germany, which will enable CO2-neutral paper manufacturing.
Still in the ramp-up R&D stages, pioneer operations at the pilot plant commenced in 2024 and further research is now ongoing to enable “a fundamentally new CO2-neutral manufacturing process.” The project is said to mark “a breakthrough in sustainable paper production”, with the new technology “targeting new benchmarks for sustainability” by reducing freshwater consumption by up to 95% and lowering energy consumption by up to 40%, when compared to the conventional tissue paper making processes.
Funding of €14.5m has been granted by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action to research the ground-breaking process into sustainable paper production. The funding is within the scope of the BMWK Decarbonisation of Industry programme and the EU’s NextGenerationEU fund – initiatives designed to permanently reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions. In February, TWM spoke to the project leaders – Elena Viviani, Technology Director at Essity, Jonas Bergströmand Matthias Höhsl, Senior Managers Disruptive Innovation at Voith Paper – to get the latest updates on progress.
Swedish-headquartered tissue manufacturer Essity has called the pioneer project a “disruptive concept” that it says will “revolutionise and rethink the tissue manufacturing.” Over the past few years, the company has already claimed industry-firsts when it comes to sustainability: in 2023, it announced it has successfully proven to produce tissue in a CO2 emission free production process – where no carbon dioxide is emitted at all, essentially producing zero emissions – process using renewable hydrogen at its plant in Kostheim, Germany. By completely replacing natural gas with green hydrogen, the production facility was able to reduce its fossil CO2 emissions to zero during normal operations. In 2021, it also started producing high-quality tissue from wheat straw at its plant in Mannheim, Germany, the first of its kind in Europe, and the first on a large-scale tissue production in the world.
With its ‘Papermaking for Life’ development offensive, Voith, the leading full-line supplier, is investing around €100m annually in research and development to develop highly efficient solutions that not only increase efficiency but also minimise the consumption of resources. A cornerstone of Voith’s sustainability strategy is the development of this ground-breaking concept based on years of R&D work. In addition, Voith’s subsidiary Toscotec is providing support as a specialist in tissue machines with process and plant development. This innovation highlights Voith’s commitment to a greener industry and underlines its role as a pioneer in developing solutions that can significantly reduce the environmental footprint of the paper industry. Voith has set itself ambitious targets, particularly with regard to water and fibre consumption: By 2030, freshwater consumption is to be reduced by 90% and the recycling rate increased to 90%.
In addition, Voith aims to enable a completely CO2-neutral paper manufacturing process. Together with Essity, the company is approaching this goal fast: the concept forecasted to be proven in 2025, enabling CO2-neutral – when an activity or product balances out its carbon dioxide emissions by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere through carbon offsetting – tissue production.
Elena Viviani, Technology Director at Essity, says that currently, the drying step in the tissue machine process uses up 60-70% of the overall energy expenditure: “If we are able to tackle this, then we are definitely making a big improvement in neutrality, and also affordability considering all the resources together. One of the main aspects of this project is to drastically cut water use, and we can say that by drastically reducing water we are really changing and shifting the way we make tissue.”
The making of tissue has been water based for millennia since the Egyptians, she adds. “So the only way we can really shift this paradigm is to cut the water out. And to cut the water out, especially in the forming phase, we don’t then need as much energy to mechanically remove the water, and then we also don’t need so much energy to dry the water.”
At Essity’s Mannheim tissue plant, Viviani says, the plant has a long history of process and product development. “Within the technology team that I am leading, we have the resources and capabilities there to put the project into operational use. It’s very close to Heidenheim, so it’s a natural choice. But it doesn’t mean necessarily that the first industrial application will be at Mannheim. But we have the right capabilities there that complement the development and we are very pleased with the progress we are making on the pilot line.”
Among innovation and leading in hygiene and health, sustainability is something characterised in Essity as a company, Viviani adds. “At the beginning of this adventure with Voith, we are a leader in hygiene and health, and that means we are the one that really needs to help drive this type of innovation. We see the need and we take the responsibility for it.”
The development is also not just bound to Europe, but rather meant to go out on a global scale: “The industrialisation journey is yet to be decided. First, we need to finish the research and development on the pilot line,” she adds.
Jonas Bergström has the project lead at Voith’s side. He says the project has sparked a lot of curiosity, even within Voith: “The technology is fundamentally different. It’s also a very inspiring environment to work with as it’s something that’s not an incremental change, but something that’s completely new. We have the opportunity to really explore and we are working on a topic that is very relevant in today’s marketplace. You can feel this amongst the teams here.”
The pioneer project is also looking at things from a product perspective, not just from an environmental perspective: “It has a lot of potential, and it’s very exciting to see that it can have its place amongst tissue grades,” Bergström says. “Voith, Essity and Toscotec are working on developing the product as well as the progress together.”
The CO2 reduction has so far been “hitting the forecast spot” during the last two year, he adds. “It has certainly been the driving force for us to drive that down as much as possible. The ambition is to go CO2 neutral with the project, inside the whole project, so it won’t have any combustion or gas and we can go CO2 neutral in the future. That’s definitely one of the main targets.”
Alongside that, he says the company is working at reducing the overall energy consumption compared to how tissue has been made for decades. “It’s something that’s very different. Additionally, we will save a lot of water as we have reduced the need for freshwater quite drastically. That’s where we’re aiming for the reduction of up to 95%, and that has been a great aspect for us within Voith. The issue of water has been climbing up in importance what with the hot summers we have been having and the ground water level sinking. CO2 energy reduction and water savings – they are the two main forces that are driving us to do this project.”
How to achieve this is “still being researched and must be piloted,” Bergström says. “We are confident of reaching the technical targets. We took the decision a year and a half ago to build the pilot line in Heidenheim and it is quite a commitment to do that. But it allows us to try this process under very industrial-like conditions, as you can do in a pilot line, and produce base material to validate the product quality. We can also confirm the energy consumption for future commercial processes.”
Viviani adds that from the technology side of the pilot, it really is meant to be scalable. “This is one very relevant aspect is that the way the pilot is set up, it will help us directly in the scale up process. It is about the sustainability target, but we also need to fulfil the need of the consumers and make sure that the product coming out is of the high-quality we need, and which Essity is known for. Product wise we went to our other facilities, and we were trying to understand the range, as well as the process. The process is not frozen, we are still in the phase where we are adjusting and changing, so we are still on the journey. But we clearly see the potential, for both the process and the product.”
Essity and Voith started into 2025 further researching the winning concept. The plan is to freeze the concept later in the year and start the optimisation process – which will result in an industrial application.
